Talk:Smith–Putnam wind turbine

Caltech Contributions
Here are some excerpts from web sources on the Caltech involvement in the Smith-Putnam project.

Perhaps some Wikipedia contributor better skilled in creating and editing content can add some of this to the main page.

The last paragraph below in the NASA document provides a bit more motivation for the S. Morgan Smith company's investment.

The NASA paper and the conference at which it was delivered were in turn motivated by the fallout from the 1973 Yom Kippur War and the Arab oil embargo.

http://www.galcit.caltech.edu/about/history

In 1939, the Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratories of the California Institute of Technology (GALCIT) was approached by Palmer C. Putnam, who was backed by electric utilities, to design a large windmill to generate electrical power. Theodore von Kármán had William Rees Sears and W. Duncan Rannie carry out the aerodynamic design. The final product, a windmill 170 feet in diameter, was erected on Grandpa's Knob in Vermont and functioned as planned. After an unusually high wind bent one blade, the sponsors withdrew their support.

http://www.nap.edu/read/1760/chapter/50

Duncan Rannie was also a key player when von Karman and several of us, his students, became interested in power generation by wind power -- the project that led to the Smith-Putnam Wind Turbine, which was constructed on Grandpa's Knob in Vermont. Unfortunately, Rannie's analytical findings regarding the stability of the giant windmill were not incorporated in the prototype that was built and tested on the mountain.

http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19740026427.pdf

Joseph M. Savino, A Brief Summary of the Attempts to Develop Large Wind-Electric Generating Systems in the U.S., NASA TM X-71605, August 29-30, 1974

Having concluded that the most promising concept was a large two-bladed propeller type rotor that powered an a.c. generator, Putnam proceeded to develop a preliminary design and made some cost calculations. He showed his design and costs to the Dean of Engineering at MIT, Dr. Vannevar Bush, who reacted quite favorably; this was in 1937. Bush introduced Putnam to a vice president of General Electric Company, Mr. T. Knight, who likewise was favorably impressed. From this point on Putnam was able to enlist the services of some very taiented people which included Theodore von Karman, a world famous authority on aerodynamics, to assist in the design, parametric studies, cost analyses, site selection, and determination of wind characteristics.

Putnam, with the help of influential persons, was able to interest the S. Morgan Smith Company of York, Pennsylvania to fund the project and to become the prime contractor in the manufacture of the first experimental wind-generator system. The Smith Company was a manufacturer of hydraulic turbines for use in hydroelectric plants and was interested in diversifying its product line because the number of sites on which hydro-electric plants could be built was decreasing. Hence, the S. Morgan Smith Co. agreed to take on the project.

Banchang (talk) 02:36, 24 January 2016 (UTC)


 * I've added your suggested contributions, with a rewrite of direct extracts from the sources. --Wtshymanski (talk) 20:14, 28 November 2016 (UTC)